MICKEY Moran has revealed that he and Eamonn Coleman “reconciled with each other” before Eamonn’s death in 2007.
In a short statement given exclusively to The Irish News, Moran says that the former coaching colleagues who were behind Derry’s sole All-Ireland success in 1993 made their peace in the later years of Coleman’s life.
Having coached the team in ’93 under Coleman’s command, Moran took over as Derry manager following Derry county board’s controversial decision to sack Coleman in the wake of their Ulster and All-Ireland titles having been stripped by Down in a summer classic in ’94.
The decision led to acrimony which was recently brought back to the surface 25 years on by the release of a book ‘The Boys of ‘93’, written by Coleman’s niece Maria McCourt on the basis of interviews with the Ballymaguigan man which were mostly conducted in 2002.
In a statement, Mickey Moran said that he was disappointed by “hurtful and personal comments” in the book.
“Having read the book ‘The Boys of ‘93’ I was disappointed to discover what I consider to be a number of factual inaccuracies relating to the period of 1994/95,” it read.
“In addition, the book contains many hurtful and personal comments directed towards myself and others, some of whom have sadly passed away.
“As with any situation there are different narratives which may give rise to a different interpretation of events.
“I have continually kept my counsel for over twenty years and I am content that I met with Eamonn shortly before his death and we reconciled with each other.
“I will not be making any further comment at this time.”
Having returned to manage Derry at the beginning of the 2000s and taken them to an All-Ireland semi-final in 2001, where they were beaten by Galway, Eamonn Coleman passed away on June 11, 2007 after a battle with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.
Former Donegal, Mayo and Sligo boss Moran, who first managed Derry in the 1980s and did a further third stint in the early 2000s, is one of a number of figures from around the Oak Leaf camp at the time who are heavily criticised in the book.
In his chapter, Coleman’s son Gary is critical of Moran, but revealed details of a phone call Moran had made to him the night his father passed away, as well as a subsequent meeting.
‘The night Daddy died on 11 June 2007, I took a phone call from Mickey Moran,” said Gary in the book.
“It can’t have been easy for him to do as we hadn’t spoken in ten years or more and he’d have had no idea of the reception he would get.
“He passed on his sympathies but said he couldn’t make the wake.
“The following week he called to my house, we embraced, we got emotional and we talked.
“After a while, I took him to Daddy’s grave where we stood side by side. This is an account of my experience of the mid-nineties, but I appreciated – and still do – Mickey’s actions of 2007.”
